


A Small Rebellion

by Nao



Series: The True Song [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Political Jon Snow, S8 ep4 missing scene, Stark Family Reunion(s) (ASoIaF), it's not jon/sansa yet but it's getting there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 07:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nao/pseuds/Nao
Summary: The last of the Starks gather.  Jon lights the fuse for a small rebellion.  Arya comes to a decision.  How I feel that scene should have gone.





	A Small Rebellion

“You’re the King?” Arya whispered it, hair swinging over her face as she whipped her head round to skewer Jon with a look. She raked her eyes across his face, his dark eyes wide and unblinking.  The enormity of it grew in her chest until she felt like she could scarce breathe.  The Waif had hit her near as hard many a time, but never quite like this. He looked as though he’d been hit too, harder.  He looked like he’d been stabbed. 

Arya dropped her eyes from his face, not wanting for her own to betray her more than it already had.  Not that it mattered.  Sansa wouldn’t pry into how she felt.  Bran wouldn’t care, though he would know already she felt, strange thing that he was now.  He always knew, or could guess well enough.  She listened to the rustle of Jon shifting from one foot to the other. To the sound of his feet in their good Northern boots, the rub of his good Northern leather, and the whispering sigh from his Stark chest.  

“Am I?” Jon replied, a hitch in his voice.  He shuffled away, turning his body until he was as small as he had looked before Daenerys.  A flake of snow shivered down from the heart tree and trembled before her nose.  “I was King in the North and I gave our kingdom away to bring Daenerys’ strength to our aid,” he sighed again, and Arya raised her head fully to look at him.  “What kind of king does that?”

“A smart one,” Sansa cut in before Jon could ramble onward.  She stared at him, hands twisting and fluttering, like they were live things, separate from her body.  “Smarter than Robb.  Smarter than Father.”  Jon raised his head a little, glancing around at them all, and then at Sansa.  Their eyes caught and held.  

Sansa went on, voice taut, “What would have been smarter would have been to tell me.  To tell it all and tell it true.”

“So you could, what?  Break guest right and murder Daenerys in her bed now that the Night King is gone?  So you could hold her hostage?  Kill her dragons?  Rid us all of the Unsullied and the Dothraki?” Sansa stilled her hands, gripping them tight enough that the leather creaked.  

Arya glanced between them.  Jon faced them all now; the brother she remembered.  The brother she loved.  Who wasn’t afraid.  “We could rally the North to our cause.  The Reeds.  House Glover.  The Manderlys.  Even the Tully forces.  It could be done, Sansa and I have already begun speaking of it.”

“And bring another war to our walls?  Spend more of our resources on a battle that can’t be won.  You’re dreaming, the both of you,” he looked to Sansa again.  “You said it yourself, didn’t you?  The men are tired.  They’re heart sore and weary.  Even if they would fight, all that would happen is—.”

“Fire and blood,” Bran’s voice carried over them all.  Arya peered at him, then replied.  “You think we’d lose?  This is our home.  We know it better than she and hers ever will.”

“Torrhen Stark bent the knee rather than watch his family burn.”

Lip curling, despite herself, Arya paced closer to him.  “She’s Jon’s aunt.  She wouldn’t burn him.  He’s her only family in the world.”  Arya waited, but Bran stared back at her, as though his silence was answer enough.  More snow fell, landed on her nose, and melted.  She shivered, pricked with something worse than cold and dragged her eyes from Bran’s.  

Jon and Sansa were staring at each other, looking as though all the world had ceased outside of themselves.  Arya watched them until Jon felt her gaze and looked to her.  “So you’re her sworn man, then.”  He blinked, but Arya made no effort to explain the conclusion she’d reached.  If she could suss it out, then Sansa would too.  Jon was a man of honor.  He kept his word, his queen’s secrets, and obeyed her will.  And would for as long as it served the interests of the North.  A crown be damned.  

“I am.  I’m her nephew and her liegeman,” he sighed, a huff that shook the furs piled high on his shoulders.  “And I am taking the able bodied men South to Kings Landing, as I promised in return for her aid.”  Arya nodded and flicked a glance at Sansa, who frowned but nodded after a moment.  

“And me,” Arya replied.  She raised an eyebrow at Jon, when he opened his mouth to reply, and he shut his teeth with a click.  

“And you,” he returned.  He looked at her, fierce and muddled with worry all at once, and she went to him and hugged him with all the strength she could muster.  He wrapped his arms, cloak and all, about her, and Arya sighed.  “You’re my brother.  No matter what name men call you by.” Jon made no reply, but brought his arms a little tighter about her.  

He was her brother.  And a king.  And a liar.  If he could go South to keep Winterfell and the North out of another war, and play at being Daenerys loyal servant, then she could go South to protect him, and finish off her list, and a few more besides.  No one would think a thing was amiss at all.


End file.
